Bot. Char. Pileus inflated, lobed, cinereous,[186] lobes deflexed, adnate, stem fistulose, costato-lacunose; stem white or dusky.
This Helvella is not so common as the last, neither is it so sapid. They both grow in woods and on the stumps of old trees. Bendiscioli places them, for flavour, before the Morell, but this is not the general opinion entertained of them.
Helvella esculenta, Pers.
[Plate XII. Figs. 3, 4, and 5.]
Bot. Char. Pileus inflated, irregular, undulated, gyroso-rugose, of a rich dark-brown colour, margin united with the stem; stem white or dusky. In plantations of fir and chestnut adjoining Weybridge Heath, in Surrey. It has not yet been found elsewhere in Britain.
VERPA DIGITALIFORMIS, Persoon.
PEZIZA ACETABULUM, Linn.
Tribe Cupulati.
These funguses are very similar in their properties to the Helvellæ; that is, are not to be despised when one cannot get better, nor to be eaten when one can. “The Verpa,” says Vittadini, “though sold in the market, is only to be recommended when no other esculent fungus offers, which is sometimes the case in spring.” The Peziza acetabulum is utterly insipid, and depends entirely for flavour upon the sauce in which it is served. As they are rare in England, I shall merely give the botanical character of each.
Verpa digitaliformis, Persoon.
Pileus campanulate, three-quarters of an inch high, more or less closely pressed to the stem, but always free, wrinkled, but not reticulated, under side slightly pubescent, sporidia yellowish, elliptic, stem three inches high, half an inch thick, equal or slightly attenuated downwards, loosely stuffed, by no means hollow, transversely squamulose.[187] Season, spring.